by Terry Wane Benton<\/p>\n
“And they sang a new song, saying: ‘You are worthy to take the scroll, And to open its seals; For You were slain, And have redeemed us to God by Your blood Out of every tribe and tongue and people and nation’<\/em>” (Revelation 4:9).<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
So, a new song comes out in the form of a prayer to Jesus. There was no thought that a song to Jesus was unscriptural or forbidden. All things are new in Christ (II Corinthians 5:17), and therefore the song is new. It is due to new things to sing about that John is viewing the twenty-four elders singing a new song before the throne. The Psalms speak frequently of singing a new song. (Psalms 33:3; 40:3; 96:1; 98:1; 144:9; 149:1), due to new experiences and realizations of our relations to God, and our new realizations of His glory. These never get old.<\/p>\n
This new song is based on knowing and seeing Jesus as the only One worthy to take the scroll and open its seals, and the reason He is worthy to do this was because He was the perfect, unblemished sacrifice that “was slain<\/em>“, and what John already knew about the Lamb of God being slain is that Jesus was displaying perfect love for us, the unworthy sinners. His love was selfless and sacrificial. He was doing this to redeem us, to buy us off the slave market of sin and condemnation. He was doing this with His own precious blood. The blood of the perfect and holy for the imperfect and unholy. He didn’t do this for just one person or one nation. He did this for every tribe, every tongue, every people (Jew or Gentile), and every nation. That gets every reader who should have “ears to hear<\/em>” this. As Paul said, “He loved me <\/b>and gave Himself for me<\/strong>” (Galatians 2:20). It is truly touching to realize it was for me <\/b>as well!<\/p>\n
John is impressed with the song about the worthiness of Jesus. It is a song that should be “new<\/em>” to us and “renew us<\/em>” day by day (II Corinthians 4:16ff). It should be fresh and new to give us new seasons of refreshing. How can we not join in to praise Jesus? As an old hymn by reason of years, it should still be new to today’s refreshing of the heartstrings,<\/p>\n
“Worthy of praise is Christ our Redeemer,
\nWorthy of glory, honor and pow’r!
\nWorthy of all our souls’ adoration,
\nWorthy art Thou! Worthy art Thou!”<\/blockquote>\nThe thought rises up within:<\/p>\n
“In vain and high and holy lays,
\nMy soul her grateful voice would raise;
\nFor who can sing the worthy praise
\nof the wonderful love of Jesus!”<\/blockquote>\nThe twenty-four elders were indeed singing such thoughts of marvel and elation. How can we not also be captivated by such a worthy One as Jesus? Great men with crowns cast them down before this throne and sing of the worthiness of Jesus. Come up and see! You too will have a new song!<\/p>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
by Terry Wane Benton “And they sang a new song, saying: ‘You are worthy to take the scroll, And to open its seals; For You were slain, And have redeemed us to God by Your blood Out of every tribe and tongue and people and nation’” (Revelation 4:9). So, a new song comes out in…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[27],"tags":[1253,198,73,102],"class_list":["post-66084","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-article","tag-glory","tag-honor","tag-jesus","tag-revelation"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":50032,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/evaluating-new-songs\/","url_meta":{"origin":66084,"position":0},"title":"Evaluating New Songs","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"July 15, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"by Mark Roberts in\u00a0Abundant Life\u00a0via\u00a0Meditate on These Things For the longest time, it seemed brethren were fairly certain Sacred Selections contained just about every hymn that needed to be sung. Like it or not, that has certainly changed. Many congregations are now using some other hymnal other than Sacred Selections.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Article"","block_context":{"text":"Article","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/article\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-content\/uploads\/2006\/07\/song.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":23026,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/theres-a-lesson-in-that\/","url_meta":{"origin":66084,"position":1},"title":"There’s a Lesson in That …","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"May 29, 2020","format":false,"excerpt":"by Patrick Andrews Two weeks ago, at the request of a friend, I wrote a poem about Beulah Land. Someone commented on that poem recently and after I finished reading the comment, I listened again to the song that I had copied to my post. This song was written over\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Article"","block_context":{"text":"Article","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/article\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/05\/piano-300x169.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":86059,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/psalms-hymns-and-spiritual-songs\/","url_meta":{"origin":66084,"position":2},"title":"Psalms, Hymns, and Spiritual Songs","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"March 25, 2025","format":false,"excerpt":"by Wayne S. Walker via\u00a0Biblical Insights, Vol. 15 No. 1, January 2015 We know from the New Testament and can infer from later writings of church leaders that Christians of the first century did sing in their worship, but we do not know precisely what songs they sang or exactly\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Article"","block_context":{"text":"Article","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/article\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":94303,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/fallacies-about-singing\/","url_meta":{"origin":66084,"position":3},"title":"Fallacies About Singing","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"March 3, 2026","format":false,"excerpt":"by Roger D. Campbell When it comes to singing songs of praise to the Lord God, our concepts of such need to be based on the teaching of the New Testament. Sometimes, though, when it comes to singing spiritual songs, Christians accept ideas that simply are not true. Since such\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Answer"","block_context":{"text":"Answer","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/answer\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":59766,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/the-songs-that-we-sing\/","url_meta":{"origin":66084,"position":4},"title":"The Songs That We Sing","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"March 7, 2005","format":false,"excerpt":"by Wayne S. Walker As I was growing up, I loved to join in the singing of hymns and gospel songs during church services and other occasions where people gathered together to praise God in song, and through the years with my general love of music I have maintained an\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Article"","block_context":{"text":"Article","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/article\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":39088,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/revelation-14-and-the-harps\/","url_meta":{"origin":66084,"position":5},"title":"Revelation 14 and the Harps","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"May 30, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"by Doy Moyer I'm dealing here with a very narrow aspect of the question of instruments in worship. In support of the use of instruments in worship, we often hear Revelation 14 brought up. Because this passage is used positively, and because it involves the use of instruments, then this\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Article"","block_context":{"text":"Article","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/article\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/05\/Harp-219x300.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66084","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=66084"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66084\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=66084"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=66084"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=66084"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}